Britain’s Croda annual profit jumps on higher life sciences sales

(Reuters) -British speciality chemicals group Croda reported a 48.1% jump in annual profit on Tuesday, underpinned by strong growth in its healthcare business and a rebound in demand for cosmetics which propped up its consumer care unit.

Croda, which is supplying Pfizer with substances that help with the storage and long-term administration of its COVID-19 vaccine, saw an 80% jump in healthcare business sales, led by lipid systems for mRNA shots and as healthcare systems came back online.

London-listed Croda said its adjusted pretax profit for the year ended Dec. 31 rose to 445.2 million pounds ($598 million), from 300.6 million pounds a year earlier, and it also increased its full-year dividend by about 10%.

Analysts were expecting a profit of 444.9 million pounds on sales of 1.83 billion pounds at the median average, a company-compiled consensus showed.

Croda had seen a decline in demand for its mainstay personal care business as people refrained from buying self-care products during COVID-induced lockdowns, but saw growth at its life-science division after the contract with Pfizer.

Britain’s Croda, which counts Unilever and Procter & Gamble among its customers, expects growth to continue in 2022, buoyed by a recovery in costs and increased consumer demand.

In December, the company had agreed to sell its performance technologies and industrial chemicals division for $1 billion to focus on its life sciences and consumer business.

($1 = 0.7445 pounds)

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka and Amna Karimi in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)